Tell Japan: Stop selling all ivory!

Weak laws only provide cover for wildlife traffickers

Japan is trying to have it both ways. It wants to keep selling legalivory while setting laws to prevent the importation and sales of illegalivory. But it's not working and elephants are being slaughtered to meet Japan's retail demand.

Here's the problem. The Japanese government has an "ivory control system" that supposedly prevents wildlife traffickers from smuggling in ivory hacked away from murdered elephants. But these regulations don't work.

Undercover investigations have exposed – time and again – that wildlife traffickers are simply paying off custom officials and others to stamp their ivory as legal. Already, tons of illegal tusks have gone straight to manufacturers with commercial retailers none the wiser.

There is only one way to protect elephants: make the ivory tradeentirely illegal. Join AWF in telling the Government of Japan it's time to close their ivory market for good. Be one of 60,000 to sign our petition now!

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Subject
Shut down Japan's ivory trade now!

Mr. Masaharu Nakagawa, Ministry of the Environment, Japan

Message

As a member of African Wildlife Foundation's community of wildlife advocates, I ask that you close your ivory trade immediately and without exception. Japan's current laws meant to curb illegal ivory sales simply don't work and several undercover investigations prove it.

For example, one investigation demonstrated that Japan Wildlife Research Centre (JWRC) staff were willing to coach ivory registration applicants in how to falsify registration documents for whole tusks. In other reports, one retailer's staff instructed traffickers on how to register 400 to 500 illegal tusks over the past five years and, previous to that, another retailer used between 500 and 1,600 tusks to manufacture ivory goods.

Japan has become a safe-haven for traffickers. Since 2009, Chinese authorities have confiscated 5.8 metric tons of ivory smuggled out of Japan. And a recent report published by TRAFFIC Japan found “considerable evidence” that Japan is contributing to the illegal ivory trade.

The only way to stop being used by black market profiteers and wildlife criminals is to shut down Japan's ivory trade entirely and immediately. The survival of elephants may very well depend on it.

I urge you to act with integrity and alacrity in joining a growing number of governments which have criminalized the sale of ivory in domestic markets. Elephants can't wait until everyone has had their fill of ivory profits. They'll be gone long before then. Please act now.